Opinion: Spring Football Only Creates More Problems

If decision makers really are looking out for the health and safety of student athletes then playing a football season in the spring shouldn’t be considered as an option.

Early last week the Big Ten opened the door on such a possibility and last Friday, the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association made many schools – including those in this area – re-think their previous plans of playing fall ball when the board of control approved a schedule that would carve out two months for the sport to be played in the spring.

The new WIAA calendar has several fatal flaws, but the intent was to provide a safer option and, given all we know about concussions and the general violence associated with football, it’s hard to see how this would be more safe. Students would be asked to put their bodies through at least 15 games essentially between Easter and Halloween.

At least, that’s what the coach who once dominated the conference said last week. Now an analyst for FOX Sports, Urban Meyer said in an interview with the Big Ten Network last week that there was “no chance” the season would actually be held in the spring. 

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“You can’t ask a player to play two seasons in a calendar year,” Meyer said. “I don’t see that happening... The body, in my very strong opinion, is not made to play two seasons within a calendar year. That’s 2,000 repetitive reps and football’s a physical, tough sport. So I don’t, really don’t, see that happening.”

Early indications are that the spring season with be six-to-eight games, beginning in February. That could mean 22 games for college players within a 10-month period, which would put their bodies at an extreme risk for injuries. 

There isn’t a single college football player who intends on entering the draft in either 2021 or 2022 who should play in a spring season.

The NFL Draft is held in late-April or early-May every year. A season that begins in February wouldn’t end until the beginning of April, giving players almost no time to prepare for the draft and NFL scouts no time to be educated on those available prospects.

Prospects for the 2022 draft would also be wise to sit out a spring season and wait for the fall, simply because of the aforementioned injury risk.  

It’s difficult to argue with the decision to postpone the fall season, but the idea that they’ll pick up where they left off in spring is fatally flawed.

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